The 'Church' is ... catholic because her communion embraces the whole human race.
Being Christian without the Church doesn't make sense. That's why the great Paul VI, said that the most absurd dichotomy is loving Christ without the Church. To listen to Christ, but not the Church. To be with Christ, but stay at the margins of the Church. It's not possible. It's an absurd dichotomy.
The parish is the presence of the Church in any given territory, an environment for hearing God's word, for growth in Christian life, for dialogue, proclamation, charitable outreach, worship and celebration.
Such self-denial 'may appear demanding,' but it will allow you, so to speak, to be and to breathe within the heart of the church.
The time has come for the Church to take up the joyful call to mercy once more. It is time to return to the basics and to bear the weaknesses and struggles of our brothers and sisters. Mercy is the force that reawakens us to new life and instils in us the courage to look to the future with hope.
It is better to have a Church that is wounded but out in the streets than a Church that is sick because it is closed in on itself.
I dream of a church that is a mother and shepherdess.
Babies cry, make noise, go here and there. But it annoys me when a baby cries in church and there are those who say he needs to go out. The cry of a baby is God's voice: never drive them away from the church!
It is important to integrate immigrants into society and to welcome them in the church community
The Church of Rome, the Pope has always said, 'Seek peace.'
I tell priests to flee from clericalism because clericalism distances people. May they flee from clericalism and I add: it's a plague in the Church.
Integrating in the Church doesn't mean receiving communion.
The Church's challenge is staying close to the people, close to the people of the United States, not being a detached Church from the people but close to them, close, close, and this is something that the Church in the United States has understood and understood well.
10 days before the death of St. John Paul II, in that Via Crucis of Holy Friday, Joseph Ratzinger said to the whole Church that it needed to clean up the dirt of the Church.
There is nothing the Church can do except try to educate people to become good consumers.